Antlers

Although Nimble had lost his horns he managed to go through the winter
without missing them as much as he had expected. And in time he had
almost forgotten the pair of spikes that he had worn on his head the
summer before. Then, one day, he made a great discovery. He found that
new horns were sprouting to take the place of those that he had lost!

"Now I can have some mock battles again--when my horns get long enough,"
he thought. And then he stopped short. What if the Spike Horns of the
year before had no more horns? If they were hornless they certainly
wouldn't care to take part in any mock battles.

Nimble's fears were soon set at rest. His old playmates soon let him
know that they were all going to have new horns too.

And then, a little later, Nimble made another great discovery. He was
looking into a pool one morning when he saw something that gave him huge
delight. His new horns were not like last year's horns. He beheld,
mirrored in the water, a handsome pair of Y-shaped antlers, each with
two points!

"Hurrah!" he cried. "I'll make those Spike Horns feel like hiding
themselves again."

He had expected to have a pleasant time showing his new antlers to his
old friends. When he met Dodger the Deer, Nimble called to him: "See
what I've got! Antlers! Two points!"

"Ho!" said Dodger. "So have I got antlers. And they have two points,
too."

Nimble had been so interested in his own horns that he hadn't looked at
Dodger's. And now when he gazed at them he saw that they were like his.

"What about the rest of the Spike Horns?" Nimble asked Dodger. "Have
they----"

"Yes, they have!" Dodger interrupted. "I tell you, 'two-pointers' are
common this season."

"So there aren't any more Spike Horns!" said Nimble somewhat sadly.

"Oh, yes! Plenty!" Dodger answered. "But they're an entirely new crop.
They were fawns last year."

When he heard that bit of news Nimble felt happier. And as soon as he
parted from Dodger the Deer he went and found some of the new Spike
Horns and showed them his wonderful two-point antlers.

But somehow they didn't seem at all impressed. They were too much taken
up with their own spikes to pay any attention to Nimble.

"Anyhow," he said to himself, "we 'two-pointers' can have some good mock
battles together."

And they did. They had mock battles that became famous all around Blue
Mountain. And of all the "two-pointers" that lived in that neighborhood,
Nimble and his friend Dodger the Deer were known as the best
sham-fighters. They could look fiercer and act angrier than any of their
young friends. And the way they tore into each other was almost enough
to frighten you, if you had seen them.

Old Mr. Crow said it was worth flying a mile to watch one of their
set-tos.